https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/feb/24/america-says-goodbye-paperback>For generations of readers, the gateway to literature was not a hushed library or a polished hardback but a wire spinner rack in a supermarket, pharmacy or railway station. There, amid chewing gum and cigarettes, sat the mass-market paperback: squat, roughly 4in by 7in and cheap enough to be bought on a whim.>But the era of the “pocket book” is drawing to a close. ReaderLink, the biggest book distributor in the US, announced recently that it would stop distributing mass-market paperbacks. The decision follows years of plummeting sales, from 131m units in 2004 to 21m in 2024, and marks the end of a format that once democratised reading for the working class.I'm sad to see MMPBs go. I much prefer their portable size, cheap price, and how they don't make me afraid to beat them up and crack their spines. The alternative option for cheap, portable reading seems to be in e-readers nowadays, but I prefer physical copies of books. Atleast for now we have MMPBs filling the shelves of secondhand bookshops, but eventually they'll start disappearing as they fall apart and become unusable due to ordinary decomposition. What does /lit/ think of MMPBs going away? I'm sure there are a few anons who, like me, grew up reading these things as a kid.
>>25412147I hate paperbacks. Good riddance. I've been buying nothing but hardbacks for the past ten years.
>>25412153Paperbacks help with the preservation of knowledge
>>25412147The market shifted away from them to trade paperbacks because they could charge slightly more because they feel more premium. Just a question now of how long will the trade paperbacks last?
>>25412181>The market shifted away from them to trade paperbacks because they could charge slightly more because they feel more premium. Just a question now of how long will the trade paperbacks last?I don't really get it. You'd think right now, with the cost of living being absurd for most working class people, that they would gravitate to cheaper books more than trade paperbacks.
>>25412189Buyers are retarded and shallow while corpo execs are greedy fucks.That's why you see a bunch of glossy paperbacks with fancy pagelinings that form an illustration when the book is closed.
>>25412147Very little good is produced as a MMPB today. The old ones are still great and available at your local goodwill/online but I don't see why the modern book would need version like that. People buy new books to show them off now, not read them. Nobody wants to show off a MMPB
>>25412153But you can’t get comfy in bed with hardbacks :(
>>25412253Can't carry them in your pocket either
>>25412235The industry term for this is “sprayed edges” or “spredges”
I sell used books and people will pay a premium for literally any random mass market paperback if it’s visibly old and you wrap it in plastic. You would think there’s still money to be made there for publishers
>>25412189Working class people- and most people- don't buy books. It's an increasingly specialty hobby with less casual users which is why publishers are confident those who do read will shell out at higher prices.
>>25412147I'd say ebooks have taken their niche, but even ebooks cost more than $10USD on average. At least for new/tradpub titles you'd see in the bookstore anyway.
>>25412288I don't like to buy ebooks that are more than $5, the cost to produce a book is about $5, the extra $5-$10 for the physical copy is fair enough they've got to cover production and distribution, but charging a physical price for a file I baulk at; the profit margin and royalties to the author are about the same for a $5 ebook as they are for a $10 book, it only goes up slightly for them at $15.
>>25412344>buy>ebookswhat
>>25412147I love mass market paperbacks but I only buy books at the thrift store
>>2541218999% of the people who buy books do it for the sake of filling their shelves with pretty decorations that they will never read.
>>25412147I stopped buying books years ago, because I'm a brokie and AA is just too tempting, but MMPB have always been my preferred books by far. I have actual dreams were I walk into a second hand shop full of wall to wall shelves filled with beaten up MMPB. The yellow pages. The white crackling. That corner of the cover that's always missing. The whole thing slightly bent. Sometimes you even have to tape the front pages back in. God, is there anything better in the world?
more for me to collect, mass paperbacks are excellent because they are light and easy to read while also having beautiful bright colors in their covers and just the perfect size to collect about 1000 of them for an average room filled with bookshelves. also they get pretty creative with the cover artists, for example first edition frazettas (he did loads for daw and other 70s pulp SF and fantasy) are going for a pretty penny in any condition. if you know you know, and there are a ton of highly collectible artists out there. the fun of diving into a huge pile of these things and picking out something random which is timeless and fun to read, nothing better.
It's pretty sad. That's what I grew up reading too.Then again I haven't bought a book in nearly two decades.
>>25412531Actually the AI/LLM companies are scooping all of these up, lol. TPTB want neofeudalism where the average pleb is an illiterate serf
>>25412153You really can't beat paperbacks for convenience and accessibility. They help build reading as a habit. Hardbacks are for when you're an adult with a house and library etc. when you've already made it.
>>25412147print on demand trade paperbacks are easier to overcharge for. mass markets are affordable and needed to be eliminated.>>25412153hardbacks for the past ten years are just trade paperbacks with thicker covers. the binding is usually glue. >>25412189>>25412235mass market paperbacks aren't available for most books. the book has to be almost forced on the public for it to be in that format - school assignments and classics that people think they need to read. >>25412697literacy can't change genetics. stupid people will be stupid no matter how many books they read.
is the book industry going to force me to become an ereader pirate despite me -wanting- to overpay for paper? wat de fug
>>25412350You see anon, someone has to buy the ebooks so they can be pirated.
>>25412920You're not actually buying new books right anon? I thought we all loved the CLASSICS here
I can't stand hardcovers, they are utterly uninviting and performative to me. The only exception is reference material, textbooks, some non-fiction maybe.I go to used book sales and it seems like 90% of all the contemporary slop fiction is hardbacked. I think people see it as being more literary or something.
>>25413492>I think people see it as being more literary or something.People waste money on hardcover slop fiction because they want something pretty to put on their shelves. They don't actually read them. Real readers understand that paperbacks make more sense for their portability and cheaper price; you only buy hardcovers for books that you really enjoy and want to preserve and keep around. In contrast, these retards that buy hardcovers for every new slop fiction novel that hits the market are doing so because they have no intention to actually read the book, they are simply buying a decoration for their book collection.
>>25412153>>25412905Hardbacks are certainly handy for libraries. Do they still laminate them?
MMPBs were printed on acidic paper that deteriorated and with glue that dried out over time. Ebooks are the modern equivalent without the baggage.
>>25413504Honestly I find paperbacks to be more attractive on the shelf than hardcovers. Modern hardcovers just look like library books to me. They don't feel "owned".Older and especially cloth bound covers genuinely look beautiful, and are actually properly "hardcover" and not just cardboard and glue.Shilling out for these crap collector hardcovers just signals to me that you care more about being seen owning a book than actually reading it.
>>25412350If an author writes a book I like, I want them to write more, so I give them some money so they are incentivised to keep writing.
